BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY AND PLANT QUARANTINE 7 
strictly limited to the development of practicable methods and the dissemination 
of such information. Diseased trees found in the course of inspection are 
removed by State inspectors and owners. Orchardists also willingly furnished 
labor for the destruction of infected trees. In the summer of 1934, after the 
beginning of the fiscal year, 137 nurseries in 10 infected States were inspected, 
and more than 300 phony trees in the 1-mile zone were found and removed. In 
the summer of 1935, 30 nurseries had been inspected up to July 1 and 124 
infected trees found in the environs and destroyed. 
Many peach growers in Georgia recently expressed confidence that the eradi- 
cation of escaped peach trees conducted by the Civil Works Administration in 
the winter of 1933-34, in clearing out wild and abandoned peach trees, had done 
much toward solving the problem of phony peach disease control. Other growers 
have commented on the noticeable decrease in the number of curculios infesting 
trees in orchards so protected, as compared with those not protected. A similar 
project has been approved for the fiscal year 1936, to be carried on emergency 
relief funds, for the purpose of destroying wild host plants, chiefly escaped 
peaches and abandoned orchards, thus removing these reservoirs of regional 
infection that hamper the regular orchard eradication activities. 
CITRUS CANKER ERADICATION 
The citrus canker eradication campaign is unique in character in that it is 
the first instance of the use of Federal funds appropriated specifically for the 
eradication of a plant disease. Despite the skepticism of many specialists who, 
at the time the work was inaugurated 20 years ago, regarded the effort as 
foredoomed to failure, the citrus industry has been protected from the ravages 
of this destructive disease. The effectiveness of this campaign is definitely 
proved by the fact that although canker was found on 515 properties in Florida, 
scattered through 26 counties, and approximately 3,000,000 citrus trees were 
destroyed because of the disease, no citrus canker has been reported since 
1927 in this extremely important citrus-producing State. 
During the years from 1915 to June 30, 1933, citrus canker eradication 
activities were maintained cooperatively with the States of Florida, Alabama, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, and Federal supervision was delegated to 
the Bureau of Plant Industry until December 1, 1933, when it was transferred 
to the Bureau of Entomology. During 1934 cooperative inspection work was 
limited to Louisiana and Texas in areas where incipient infections were known 
to persist. 
- In the fiscal year 1935 the project was reorganized and a Bureau representa- 
tive assigned to direct activities in the field in cooperation with the State 
officers. Such field contact gave impetus to the work from the start. A method- 
ical drive was centered in the Galveston area of Texas to search for infection 
in wild or abandoned trees in wooded bayous, along roadsides, or in nurseries 
or home plantings. Due to infections developing in relatively young plantings 
in this area from time to time it was obvious that somewhere in the vicinity 
lingered undiscovered infected trees and the task was to find and destroy them. 
From the beginning of the drive in January 1935 to the close of the fiscal 
year from 2 to 4 inspectors working this area found citrus canker on 31 
properties. All infected trees, totaling 606. and exposed trees, totaling 5,728, 
were destroyed under State authority. All citrus trees located in the day's 
work were plotted on a map for use in the event of the approval of more exten- 
sive eradication under an emergency relief project. Limited scouting during 
the year failed to disclose any infection in the commercial area of the lower 
Rio Grande Valley or the citrus-growing areas of Mississippi and Alabama. 
In Louisiana citrus canker was found in three parishes during the summer of 
1934. The 14 infected trees and 32 other exposed trees were destroyed and, 
although grove and fruit inspection has been continued in the intervening 
months, no further infection has been discovered in that Stato. There were 
218.904 trees inspected in Louisiana from July to December 1934. in Texas 
the inspection of 829,775 tm>s in 1(5 counties during the first half of the fiscal 
year disclosed 20 infected trees on 2 properties in the Galveston area. These 
were destroy ed. 
An extremely important and encouraging factor in the campaign is the 
recent approval of an emergency relief project to destroy abandoned and escaped 
citrus trees throughout the citrus-producing areas of Louisiana and Texas. 
There is every reason to believe that continued systematic SCOUting in the 
citrus-producing areas of Texas and other States will ultimately result in 
complete eradication of citrus canker from the I'nited States. 
